She had smoked the Stramonium a few times only, and it affected her head with pain and confusion, and her stomach with sickness. She was next seized with an epileptic fit, the first she had ever experienced. This attack was followed by three more fits of the same kind, at intervals of a few hours, and she became nearly insensible. The cough left her, the pulse became scarcely perceptible, and her mind was no longer capable of any exertion. She was not wholly unconscious of her state, but stupor and somnolency overpowered the little energy she possessed, and her stools and urine passed involuntarily. At first it appeared necessary to remove congestion from the head by cupping, leeches, and blisters. Strengthening medicines were then employed in consultation with Dr. Latham. The patient slowly recovered from this critical state, and attributed her epileptic fits, and preceding confusion of head, to the smoking of Stramonium.

Four persons, all of full habits, and two of them, strictly speaking, apoplectic in their forms, smoked Stramonium for the cure of dyspnoea, which they called asthma. After some days experience of this practice, one of them was still capable of coughing, but with so much pain of his head, as to indicate immediate danger. He was sixty years of age, and the other three were more than fifty. They so convincingly required depletion, that I was surprised it had not been advised by the most superficial of their friends Evacuations by bleeding and purging, removed the difficulty of breathing, and probably preserved the lives of more than one.

The smoking of Stramonium has been practised by many female patients. I saw two patients, of the ages of forty-five and forty-nine, of very plethoric habits, and each of them had experienced the inconvenience which so often follows the cessation of the menses. They wheezed much, and their breathing was oppressed upon every motion of their bodies. Without taking any measure pointed out by the actual condition of their habits, and from being informed only that they had asthma, they adopted the practice of smoking Stramonium, and became rapidly worse. Pneumonic inflammation affected one, and intolerable head-aches with dimness of sight attacked the other. They however obtained relief by the active application of the necessary treatment.

An elderly man, whose complicated disorders had began with obstructed liver three years before, was icteric, and anasarcous, with a hard belly, and irregular pulse, and had not lain horizontally for several weeks. His respiration was laborious, and he could not leave his bed without much increased agitation. I had seen him once two weeks before; and I was called to him again in the present state. I found

that.

that he had been smoking Stramonium for the last two days, and he died the night after I saw him without taking medicine.

Instances of patients in hydrothorax who had applied to the fumes of Stramonium, must have occurred very often to practitioners in this town during the last three months. I have seen six cases of this kind, and I am confident that at least half of them were so quieted by the practice, the force of the circulation through the lungs was so reduced, and the irritability of the frame so far exhausted, that they died prematurely as regarded the state of the disease.

The patients who suffer injurious or fatal consequences from smoking Stramonium, are chiefly those who have apoplectic or paralytic habits; young persons, affected with insidious spasmodic breathing, but who are actually consump tive; and elderly persons whose protracted complaints had ended in hydropic effusion in the chest. The effects of Stramonium must be referred, as Cullen has remarked, to its narcotic power; and if it be considered how universally the practice of smoking this herb has been diffused by the exertions of selfish interest, or of ignorant enthusiasm; the mischief that health and life have suffered from its use may be conceived, but cannot be very readily estimated.

I have had reported to me many deaths from smoking Stramonium, and I have verified many facts of this kind, without attending to doubtful effects in cases that might have been lost without its influence. I do not go into these cases, but have spoken only of what I have seen.

I am, dear Sir,

With great esteem,

Your most faithful

R. BREE

Dr. Gooch, of Croydon, has kindly communicated the following cases, in three of which smoking the Stramonium appears to have effected present relief.

Mr. L. 22 years old, for the last four years has had a vio lent difficulty of breathing, attended by wheezing and cough, which attack him suddenly when in bed, or at meals, disables him from business, and sometimes continues more than a week. It occasionally seizes him so violently that he is unable to speak, and appears to be threatened with instant suffocation. He has had much medical advice without receiving material benefit. He now smoked the thorn-apple, swallowing the saliva and smoke; by these means the fit terminates in a few minutes. He smokes every day, even when the fit does

not occur. Sometimes it attacks him whilst dining in com pany, in which case, he retires, smokes a pipe-full, and returns to his friends breathing freely.

Mr. I. a short, fat, puffy man, about thirty-six years old, has been subject to a difficulty of breathing for twenty years. It comes on suddenly, sometimes after any strong exercise, and sometimes whilst in bed, continues several hours or days, and not unfrequently with a degree of severity that disables him for business. He has used various remedies by the advice of various practitioners, with little or no relief. For the last few months he has smoked the stem of the Thornapple, which generally removes the difficulty of breathing within half an hour, without producing giddiness or any other unpleasant effect.

A young gentleman, about fifteen years old, came to my house to day, Sunday, March 3, breathing with great difficulty. He has been subject to asthma as long as he can remember, and formerly scarcely passed a month without haying a fit, which lasted him from two or three days to a week. For the last two years he has been free from the complaint, until about a fortnight ago, when he had a fit which continued about a day. Half an hour ago he was seized with another, which was severe. I raade him sit down and smoke a pipe full of Stramonium; he soon began to breath with greater freedom, and in about half an hour walked home quite well. He had never in his life been relieved so soon.

The complaint recurred in about a month with its former violence, and was again removed by smoking the Stramonium.

A poor boy, about fifteen years old, has been subject to asthma for the last eight years. He is seldom free from it longer than a fortnight. It almost always attacks him in the night, waking him with cough and wheezing, which generally last four or five days. It is sometimes produced by going into a barn, from the fine dust which is raised by threshing corn. When I first saw him he was wheezing and breathing with much difficulty. The next morning he procured some Stramonium, smoked a pipe full, and remained free from complaint for several days. His mother was doubtful whether the relief was to be attributed to the remedy, as the difficulty of breathing was diminishing before it was used.

A few days afterwards, he awoke about four o'clock in the morning with violent cough and wheezing. He said that "his father got up, struck a light, and brought up stairs a pipe full of the herb; he sat up in bed and smoked it. As the spittle and smoke went down it cleared his stomach, and he laid down and slept quietly till seven o'clock, when he awoke quite well." Smoking always makes him giddy.

I saw him about a week afterwards; he had had another attack this morning and smoked a pipe full, but with less relief than before. In the evening of the same day I met him accidentally, breathing with much labour. He tried a pipe when he arrived home, but without any benefit. He has tried it several times since without any relief.

Comparing this evidence of impartial medical characters, interested in upholding the dignity of their profession, and zealous in extending its utility, with the statements of cases by patients, and individuals only commercially interested in the sale of the remedy, we cannot hesitate in deciding against the practice of smoking Stramonium in the more severe and urgent forms of asthma, and phthisical complaints. It is not attempted to deny that relief has in some instances followed its use, but, the preceding facts prove that relief to be trifling indeed, when balanced with the mischief which has been effected. Ranking the herb, as we must do, amongst the narcotic poisons, we might, a priori, suppose that its essential qualities being copiously applied in the diffusible form of smoke to a very large surface minutely supplied with nerves, the paroxysms of a convulsive cough might be quieted, but at the same time, fatal injury might be induced on the sensorium. That this is the case is fearfully demonstrated by the somnolency, epilepsy, mania, and apoplexy, which have been evidently occasioned by the remedy. Again, it is proved by experiments that respiration is influenced by the brain, and ceases altogether when the functions of that organ are destroyed. Now if Stramonium does not always disturb or destroy these vital and essential functions, it is only when it is not applied in sufficient quantity, when the quality is impaired, or from some peculiar idiosyncracy of the patient. The limits of this paper necessarily forbid a minute inquiry into the various causes of asthma; but the most narrow expe rience suffices to inform us, that unless these are removed, the disease will recur, however its symptoms may for a time be palliated. Asthma frequently depends upon effusion of serum or mucus in the cavities of the chest, and of the pericardium, in the bronchial tubes and air cells; upon the mal-formation of the chest ; upon a diseased state of lungs'; upon plethora occasioning pressure and thus impeding respi ration; upon extraneous substances interrupting the natural action of the lungs, &c. all of which are most clearly and scientifically investigated and described in Dr. Bree's wellknown treatise on the subject. When any of these causes operate, can we rationally hope to obtain relief by destroying a series of actions induced in the system, to remove such noxious and offending agents? (No. 149.)

I

Some

Some people indeed are so tenacious of life that they seem to survive the effects of any sort of practice: in some habits nature is so indulgent, that they will recover although the treatment pursued is directly opposite to that which is dictated by reason or sanctioned by experience. Thus in fevers of a similar form and type, we see some patients recover, who have sustained the diffusible stimuli of John Brown; and others the large bleeding and drastic purgatives recommended by certain practitioners, even in the most advanced stage of the disorder.

Let then those worthy gentlemen who, from motives of mistaken humanity, have published their cases, and circulated their boasted cures throughout the empire, be cautious how they persevere in the practice which they so fearlessly recommend. If learned and skilful professional men are slow to admit dubious and dangerous remedies into their practice, surely those who have no pretensions to medical knowledge should be on their guard, not to deceive themselves, by imagining that because they have escaped with impunity, they may at all times be so favoured, or that their friends may be equally fortunate.

On some Physiological Researches, respecting the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart, and on the Generation of Animal Heat. By Mr. B. C. BRODIE, F.R.S. (Phil. Trans.)

Read before the Royal Society, Dec. 20, 1810.

HAVING had the honour of being appointed, by the President of the Royal Society, to give the Croonian Lecture, I trust that the following facts and observations will be considered as tending sufficiently to promote the objects, for which the Lecture was instituted. They appear to throw some light on the mode in which the influence of the brain is necessary to the continuance of the action of the heart; and on the effect which the changes produced on the blood in respiration have on the heat of the animal body.

In making experiments on animals to ascertain how far the influence of the brain is necessary to the action of the heart, I found, that when an animal was pithed by dividing the spinal marrow in the upper part of the neck, respiration was immediately destroyed, but the heart still continued to con tract circulating dark-coloured blood, and, that in some instances, from ten to fifteen minutes elapsed before its action

bad